Redwood
Poetry

Tear Me Apart


Meghan Malone

May 2023
  • Home
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Emerging Writers
    • Emerging Writers Submissions
  • Archive
    • 2024-25
    • 2023-24
    • 2022-23
    • 2020-21
    • 2019-20
    • 2018-19
  • About
    • Masthead
    • Writers
    • Contact
Divide a number by itself
You get one
Always and forever and always
Never changing

Divide a number by one
You get the same number
No matter how big or small
Every single time

Math has rules
Limitations and boundaries
Everything is neat and perfect
There is no room for error

I move through the correct equation
The step by step sequence
Through the proven reasoning
But getting an answer no one else did

Dividing splits a number apart
One piece at a time
Until there is nothing left at all

When the variable divides
There is always a way to undo it
Make a number whole again
Give it a fighting chance

To divide the number zero
You must rip apart
Something that was never there
How can you break something 
That was never whole?

My answer must be wrong
Math has no unanswered questions
No realm of possibility
How is there still an unknown?

To divide by zero is impossible
Take something apart no times
Leave it whole
Makes it cease to exist

When you break me apart
I cease to exist
Not because I am broken
There is just nothing left to break

I never had a chance
There is no fixing me
No undoing a mistake
No way to piece me back together

Math is perfect
It may grow and change
But it is fundamentally stable
A constant

I am flawed
I change but I shatter
I can never be stable
I am nothing at all
Copyright © 2019-2025 Redwood Literary Magazine. All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Emerging Writers
    • Emerging Writers Submissions
  • Archive
    • 2024-25
    • 2023-24
    • 2022-23
    • 2020-21
    • 2019-20
    • 2018-19
  • About
    • Masthead
    • Writers
    • Contact